Cautious Response to Armed Oregon Protest

The entrance of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Monday. A group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom has occupied the refuge.Credit
Jarod Opperman for The New York Times

BURNS, Ore. — Clad in boots, cowboy hats and camouflage, a small band of antigovernment protesters stood in the snow and subfreezing cold on Monday at a federally owned wildlife sanctuary they have taken over, called themselves defenders of the Constitution, and declared that they were at the vanguard of a national movement to force Washington to release its hold on vast tracts of Western land.

For its part, the federal government appeared content, for now, to monitor the situation and wait out the protesters.

The armed group, which said it had adopted the name Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, has occupied a handful of buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near here since Saturday and says it does not plan to budge until its conditions are met.

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Ammon Bundy, the leader of the group of armed protesters in Oregon, has a family history of fighting the federal government.

By TURNER COWLES on Publish Date January 5, 2016.
Photo by Jarod Opperman for The New York Times.
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The group is small — an exact number is hard to pin down — but claims to have the backing of a long list of antigovernment groups. Its goals are ambitious: The protesters want “the federal government to give up its unconstitutional presence in this county,” said Ammon Bundy, one of the leaders, at a news conference on Monday.

Members of the group also want state and local officials to hold a hearing on what they say is the abuse of federal authority against one particular ranching family here, the Hammonds, two of whom surrendered to the authorities on arson charges on Monday and went to prison.

The confrontation at Malheur seems to be the latest iteration of a generations-old struggle between Westerners who make their living off the land and the federal government that controls so much of it.

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Armed Group Standoff in Oregon Continues

The sheriff of Harney County, David Ward, urged the armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon to go home. The group said it wanted the authorities to look into its claims.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date January 5, 2016.
Photo by Jarod Opperman for The New York Times.
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But for the protesters at the wildlife refuge — a preserve for native birds, “closed until further notice,” according to its website — there was no sign of the national groundswell of support they hoped to attract. While media attention was plentiful, there was no sign of officials trying to meet their demands or of law enforcement closing in on them. The F.B.I. said it would take the lead in handling the standoff, working with state and local agencies, but no effort was made to keep the occupiers from coming and going as they pleased.

In Burns, the nearest town to the wildlife center, people said they were exasperated by the activists, most of whom seem to be from outside the area.

“They’ve put us backwards,” said Patty Hodge, a bartender in this small town, who said the stream of patrons through the Central Pastime Tavern had expressed overwhelming disapproval of the protesters. “They’re here for their own agenda, not for the people of Harney County at all.”

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Armed Group Holding On in Oregon

Ammon Bundy, the leader of a group of armed anti-government activists that seized buildings on a national wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon, said he is prepared to use force if the government does.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date January 4, 2016.
Photo by Les Zaitz/The Oregonian, via Associated Press.
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David Ward, the Harney County sheriff, said that the people at the wildlife refuge claimed to be helping local people, but “that help ended when a peaceful protest became an armed and unlawful protest.”

“It is time for you to leave our community,” he told them. “Go home, be with your own families and end this peacefully.”

Officials in Washington played down the situation, describing a kind of wait-and-see mode at the Justice Department and other agencies. Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, dismissed it is a “local law enforcement matter” to which the president had not given much thought.

Photo

A building on the refuge, which has been “closed until further notice.” The government has not tried to restrict movement of the protesters.Credit
Jarod Opperman for The New York Times

The government retreated from the 2014 confrontation with Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher and the father of Ammon, when supporters rallied around him and threatened a gun battle with federal officials. For more than two decades, Mr. Bundy has refused to pay fees for grazing his livestock on federal land, becoming a symbol of resistance.

Asked how the protesters would respond if the government tried to remove them forcibly, Ammon Bundy said, “We do not believe they will do that.”

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Mr. Bundy at a news conference on Monday.Credit
Jarod Opperman for The New York Times

Another of the occupiers, LaVoy Finicum, said that in general, the government crushes those who will not or cannot fight back. ”They don’t go after the strongest wolf,” he said.

The incident added to a fierce debate on social media, with some people offering support to the antigovernment group, and others arguing that if the people involved had not been white, they would have been dealt with harshly.

As a precautionary measure, government offices in Harney County closed Monday, and public schools closed for the whole week.

Photo

The government retreated from the 2014 confrontation with Cliven Bundy, center, a Nevada rancher, when supporters rallied around him and threatened a gun battle with federal officials.Credit
Jason Bean/Las Vegas Review-Journal, via Associated Press

The protesters here chose a low-profile way to make their stand, choosing an out-of-the-way place in the dead of winter. They contend that under the Constitution, the federal government can own only a small amount of land, for very limited purposes — which do not include wildlife refuges — and can acquire land in a state only with the state’s consent. The courts have not agreed.

In a forum here last month, Ammon Bundy was explicit about starting a national movement, and said God had instructed him to come here.

“We can restore the Constitution back to this county, and it can be an example to all the other counties across this nation,” he told local residents. “The people of this country will come to you and protect you if you will make the right stand.”

A crucial lesson of Waco and Ruby Ridge “is to avoid an armed confrontation at all costs,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director for the Police Executive Research Forum, which studies law enforcement policies. “Where the situation is contained and you can negotiate, there should be no rush to move in.”

But Heidi Beirich, the director of intelligence with the Southern Poverty Law Center, who oversees the center’s tracking of extremist groups, said that there was a danger to under-reaction, and that the last Bundy standoff had set a bad precedent.

“They were emboldened by their ability to run federal officials off at the point of a gun,” Ms. Beirich said. “Now, a year and half later, there have been no prosecutions whatsoever. Pointing a gun at a federal officer is a crime.”

The clash here stems, indirectly, from the arson convictions of two local ranchers, Dwight L. Hammond and his son Steven D. Hammond, who set fires that burned federal lands. The Hammonds have clashed with the government for decades over use of public lands, but Ammon Bundy said the underlying conflict was their refusal to sell their land to add to the wildlife refuge, despite government coercion.

The Hammonds served time in prison and were released, but a federal court ruled that they had been improperly sentenced and ordered them to serve more time. They surrendered to federal authorities on Monday, and their lawyers called on President Obama to grant clemency, saying that the five-year sentences imposed on the Hammonds were excessive.

Kirk Johnson reported from Burns, and Richard Pérez-Peña and Erik Eckholm from New York. Jack Healy contributed reporting from Denver, and Julie Hirschfeld Davis from Washington.

A version of this article appears in print on January 5, 2016, on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Occupying Federal Land, to Little Response . Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe